To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an
assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an
excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion
by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with
overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an
enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives
had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere
shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style,
pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the
desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire
of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or
the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with
awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their
bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a
puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was
their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed
evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an
intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of
the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard.
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